Get all serialized fields in Externalizable class

Question

I have several Externalizable classes. How can I write a method that returns all fields that are serialized? Alternatively, how can I determine which fields have been serialized?

Answer 1

The difference between Serializable and Externalizable classes is that Externalizable classes have the freedom to store their data in any format they like. In other words, there doesn’t have to be a correlation between instance fields and the stored data in the way you think.